Weekly Writ 3/19: How much do you like (or not) your premier?
Wab Kinew is the only provincial premier with a net positive rating among those with the strongest views.
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Manitoba’s Wab Kinew remains the most popular premier in the country, and only one of three premiers with a net positive approval rating.
But his remarkable string of popularity since coming to office in 2023 is all the more impressive when you consider that he is the only premier with a net positive approval rating among those who have the strongest opinions.
The Angus Reid Institute published its quarterly premiers’ approval ratings report yesterday, covering nine of Canada’s 10 provincial premiers. (Because of the small size of Prince Edward Island, the ARI does not have a panel that is large enough from which to adequately poll on a quarterly basis.) The report shows that Kinew is once again the most popular premier with a 61% approval rating, an increase of three points over the last quarter.
Two other premiers have majority approval: New Brunswick’s Susan Holt at 54% and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe at 51%. Both of them saw their approval rating drop by an insignificant two points.
Alberta’s Danielle Smith ranked next with 46% (+2), followed by Newfoundland and Labrador’s Tony Wakeham at 42% (+1).
Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston had the biggest drop, as his approval ratings plummeted 11 points to just 39%. This comes in the wake of a provincial budget with cuts that the Houston government had to reverse when they were met with big protests.
Rounding out the list were B.C.’s David Eby at 37% (-3), Ontario’s Doug Ford at 31% (-3) and Quebec’s François Legault at 26% (+1), in what will be his last quarterly assessment by the Angus Reid Institute. Legault will be replaced in April when the CAQ chooses his successor.
While Houston’s slide was the only one of great significance compared to the ARI’s last quarterly assessment, the smaller shifts for some of the other premiers are part of an ongoing trend.
Eby has seen his approval rating drop over four consecutive quarters by a total of 16 points since March 2025. (Houston, too, has dropped over four consecutive quarters, but more than half of his total slide of 20 points has taken place in the last three months.)
With the exception of a small uptick last fall, Ford has also been sliding over the last year. But this is more of a regression to the mean — Ford jumped to 48% when he was taking on Donald Trump early last year, but throughout 2023 and 2024 his approval rating was usually in the 33% to 34% range.
At a net -31, Ford has the worst net approval rating among the premiers who aren’t on their way out (Legault, at -42, is at the very bottom). But most premiers have net negative ratings. Wakeham is -2, Smith is -6, Houston is -19 and Eby is -21. Only Moe (+6), Holt (+14) and Kinew (+26) have lower disapproval ratings than approval ratings.
But let’s look at this from another angle. A big chunk of respondents in all provinces say they either moderately approve or moderately disapprove of their premiers. In all but Alberta and Quebec nearly half or a majority of respondents have these mushy views. What if we strip them out and look only at those who strongly approve or disapprove of their premier?
When we do that, Kinew is the only premier that is still a net positive. The ARI finds that 27% of Manitobans strongly approve of their NDP premier, while just 19% strongly disapprove. Moe drops to a net -5 when focusing only on those who feel strongly, while Holt slides to -15 — the biggest shift of any premier.
Eby and Houston drop to -30 and -26, respectively, while Smith slides to a -17. Interestingly, Ford, Legault and Wakeham have identical numbers among all respondents and among only those with strongly-held views.
These numbers suggest which premiers might be facing deeper opposition within their provinces — but also that negative views tend to be more strongly held. Smith and Kinew have the highest strongly approve numbers at 27%. With the exception of Legault (at 46%), Smith also has the highest strongly disapprove numbers at 44%. Three other premiers (Eby, Ford and Houston) have strongly disapprove ratings at 35% or more.
There are fewer “gettable” voters for these premiers as a large proportion of their electorates have such strongly held views that they are unlikely to ever be brought over to their sides. It’s one of the reasons that Legault had to go — he had no path to re-election with such high levels of opposition (his successor also seems likely to find the way forward difficult).
Smith and Kinew face elections next year (or earlier, if they want). From this vantage point, it looks like Kinew will easily secure re-election, though Smith faces a more polarized electorate. For now, she’s on the winning side of that polarization. But, as Houston recently discovered, things can change quickly.
In case you missed it, earlier this week I launched The Writ’s Vote and Seat Projection model! You can check it out, along with riding-level projections, here:
Now, to what is in this week’s instalment of the Weekly Writ:
News on the CAQ and B.C. Conservative leadership races and a sad passing in Prince Edward Island.
Polls continue to show the Liberals with a double-digit lead. Plus, what Canadians think of the war in Iran and where things stand in B.C., Ontario, Alberta and one riding in Toronto.
#EveryElectionProject: Stephen Harper wins the 2002 Alliance leadership.
Upcoming milestone for Danielle Smith.